Dear All, Please find below and attached input and feedback received from Samantha Eisner and Xavier Calvez on the questions to external experts (see attached) as well as the issue of conflict of interest (see below). In light of this input, the chairs of the CCWG have decided to go ahead with next week’s meeting as scheduled to allow for further review and discussion of the input received before finalizing the list of questions. Staff will be circulating shortly the proposed letter to be sent to external experts for your review. As a reminder, next week’s meeting is scheduled for Thursday 25 January at 14.00 UTC. Best regards, Marika ========================================= From Samantha Eisner: There are a few different scenarios where conflict issues could arise: 1. When the expert represents an entity that would like to assist ICANN/serve as a grant making organization. 2. When the expert is interested in receiving some of the auction proceeds. 3. When the expert may serve as an advisor to other potential applicants interested in receiving some of the auction proceeds. 4. When the expert is interested in serving as a consultant to ICANN in designing/implementing the selected structures. 5. When the expert is also a member of ICANN’s community and may, when providing advice, purposefully or inadvertently, represent also the position of a community organization. These each present different issues for consideration. However, it is also important that the CCWG has information available to it, so there is need to balance conflict concerns with accessibility of information to further the CCWG’s deliberations. First, it will be very important for each of the presenters to understand that the invitation to present is for general invitational purposes only. We are not seeking their proprietary information, only best practices and guidance from experience. We are also not interviewing potential grant making organizations or structures, so this is not a service proposal, nor are they determining the future rules for the process. Because of the general nature of the questions (and we have suggested some further refinement to those), there is no need for the experts to go into great detail about ICANN-specific issues. This is not yet about what ICANN should do; this exercise is about learning what others do. As a result, the focus of responses should reflect the more general practices. All presenters should be informed that these are publicly available through archive. Second, we should expect that as part of the invitation, we inform all potential presenters that they will need to consider and provide us a declaration of interest based on the classes of conflict issues identified above. Depending on the responses, we might wish to have a secondary process where we identify how deep or problematic the issue might be, and identify what protections we would put in place to make sure that those interests are on the record. We should keep a running table of the DOIs. Third, we should have an introduction for each session where we remind the expert and the participants of the scope of the conversation, as well as surface the potential conflicts on the record. Prior to the session, the Chair(s) should note that they will redirect or stop the conversation if the presentation veers into advocacy for particular entities/recipients/grant purposes. For ease of conversation, we’d also recommend that that presenters be provided with some explanation of the various models so that the questions are clearer. Lastly, we should be clear that we are not offering any compensation for inviting and participating in the conversation, nor are we expecting that the expert would incur any expense as a result of participating. — Samantha Eisner Deputy General Counsel, ICANN 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, California 90094 USA Direct Dial: +1 310 578 8631